.308 seating depth for 168gr berger

[AP218]

I am trying to work up a load with some 168 gr Berger VLDs. I loaded them long as I could to get them in my box magazine of a remington 700 adl. That put them at 2.830 overall length. They are pretty far off the rifleing. my first groups were about 1 1/4 inch at 100 yrds. I started with 39.0 gr of IMR 3031 and worked up to 43.0. My best groups were with 39.0 and 40.0 grains. I plan to narrow down the powder charge from here. Should I load them longer before I try to narrow down the loads.

Advice please

Thanks.

 

[RT2506]

I have always found the best accuracy with a powder that produced the velocity I wanted then I start playing around with seating depth. The VLDs will shoot a long ways off the lands. Read the sticky at the top of the page about seating Berger bullets.

 

[Mikecr]

What you have now could be meaningless.
Since you're not going to reach the lands, I would just go with any load of your choosing and find best seating using Berger's method.
Then, I'd start incremental load development with powder changes.